Still, snow this Christmas in North America puts the lie to British climate scientist Dr David Viner’s speculation that snowfall in Britain will be rare at some unspecified time in the future, doesn’t it?

It does if you’re Anthony Watts battling a straw man. Once again anything that supports Anthony’s assertions is climate while anything that contradicts him is weather.

Wait, it’s January 6th and the snow is already receding. Winter must be over, Global Warming’s back! (You can play too at National Snow Analyses.)

Although the map shows snow, it was a white Christmas here in Nova Scotia. After a warm December with a couple of heavy rainstorms, it snowed a couple of mm. on the 23rd. Christmas dawned , however, clear and mild. I looked out and saw the blueberry vines, plowed fields and green grass on my lawn. No tiny hoof prints, no skiing, no skating.

Now when the map shows receding snow we have snow.

Does this prove anything? Of course not: I’m just posting to try and get some attention. I know it’s ridiculous.

Yes, winter may be about over, as the Midwest US is expecting rain and temps as high at 50 oF this weekend. Is a little snow during winter really evidence of the end of global warming? Let’s hope for an early end to this year’s especially bad flu season.

[I’ve been laid low with a series of colds from almost a month! – Ben]

“Dr David Viner’s speculation that snowfall in Britain will be rare at some unspecified time in the future”

Dr Viner stated this in 2000. He did not specify the exact time, that is correct. He did however specify “a few years”. It’s now been thirteen years. Check out the last few winters in Britain. Check this winter out. Rare snowfall hasn’t happened; quite the opposite has occurred.

Whats up with that?

Think before you attempt your sophistry and dissembling.

[What’s up with trying to use “sophistry and dissembling” in the same breath as the brainless ‘Snow! Somewhere! Means global warming isn’t possible!” meme? Not to mention “Dr”. Try to stay current. – Ben]

[So your coupling of ponderous language with gullible denialist parroting isn’t comically obvious? I’ll cop to the “Dr” reference being obscure grammar nazi-ism, especially since I appear to have committed the same crime in the original post… – Ben]

Hi Phil. I accept that it is indeed piss poor journalism. It is a piss poor newspaper on the whole. Having re-read it as you suggested, I also accept that the ‘in a few years’ was added by the journalist.

Dr Viner’s highly specific “20 year” quote however was not added by the journalist (but I assume permitted the journalist to arrive at his/her ‘in a few years’ calculation) : ‘Heavy snow will return occasionally, says Dr Viner, but when it does we will be unprepared. “We’re really going to get caught out. Snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years time,” he said.’

Well, I guess we still have 7 years left for his prediction to materialise and for children to just not know what snow is.

Ben – you’re still not making any sense. The best course of action is to withdraw the straw man allegation (having first looked up what a straw man actually is and recognised that it is you in fact who is setting one up), accept that Dr Viner was in wrong, recognise that your vitriolic blog post now needs a better basis for its attack and then re-draft it before any of your other five readers notice.

[Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you grudgingly admitting that your original lazy aspersion was a repetition of baseless denialist spin while still claiming that my version, which conforms to reality, is made up? All while waving your arms majestically as you ‘splain argument. I will give you this; you haven’t simply changed the topic and shouted louder. – Ben]

Hi Ben. I have corrected you already, as you know. To borrow and amend from Pauli, ‘you’re not even wrong’.

Dr Viner however is wrong. If he is right and you are indeed “conforming to reality” please tell me how he is right. I just can’t see any manifestation of his prediction.

If you believe Watts is setting up a straw man then you too are wrong. Watts actually believes what he says.

[Actually I doubt Anthony believes what he says, but that’s beside the point here. So… Anthony and yourself claiming Dr. Viner said something that you’ve been forced to admit he clearly didn’t say is still “correct”? And my pointing this out is wild-eyed lunacy? Dr. Viner speculated on the future frequency of snow fall in Britain. Anthony tried to suggest that snow fall in an entirely different climatic region before the falsely stated target date of Dr. Viner’s prediction shows that Dr. Viner is “wrong”. Seems like you came here pretty full of yourself but are now crouched in the corner with your ears plugged chanting “I’m right I’m right I’m right”. Grab a couple of pencils and work it out on your own time, buddy. – Ben]

Hi Ben. Not really sure where you’re coming from now. I have neither sided with nor against Watts; I have merely pointed out your (continuing) dissembling tactics, which do you no credit.

Although, as evinced by your replies, you may well be the sort of person who sits in his own faeces and eats flies, I’m also certain I didn’t accuse you of wild eyed lunacy.

If you want to attack Watts (or me) from a platform of integrity or credibility then you need to do better than these lazy plagiarised ad hominem attacks and insecure grammar lessons and of course choose your initial rhetorical artefacts more sensibly. You’re welcome.

I’ll wait here for you to tell me how Dr Viner is correct. I’ll give you seven years.

[I’m quite sure you’ll be sneering over a completely different subject in seven years and that you’ll remain immune to counter-argument. You have one last chance here; explain, politely, precisely how I am “dissembling” or keep your pontifications to yourself. – Ben]

I don’t think you need any help in making things clearer RJ but I thought I’d offer some advice. Looking back to a response Ben posted on 12/2/12 to a Watts post titled “An open letter to the U.N from climate skeptics”, a few readers (e.g., Chris Smith, Willem) tried to focus on the span of almost 16 years reported to show non-warming, an observation stated in the post. Chris and Willem tried to discuss the ramifications of such a span but Ben and his followers insisted on shooting the messenger (i.e., discredit the list of scientists, call out linear trend line fails, cherry-picking data sets, and insisting on only looking at a graph that showed a span of about 38 years and not the 16-year span), all the while neglecting to even discuss the possibility of acknowledging failures in assigning presumptive values for the models, something even IPCC scientists appear to be discussing now. So when Ben accuses you of being “… crouched in the corner with your ears plugged chanting “I’m right I’m right I’m right”, I imagine it’s based on experience.

In an earlier post, I made the comment concerning the null hypothesis and that CO2 may not be the driver warmists want to champion. Another reader suggested that most contributors here would not assign CO2 as the sole driver, and so in that same vein, I would argue that most sceptics are familiar with the graph that shows warming since the 70s and don’t discount it except for the overwhelming attribution to man-made influence. The point that was attempted to be made by Chris and Willem was that perhaps a re-evaluation of modeling attributes is now necessary – a tenant of the scientific method that for some reason Ben and company simply refuse to consider. I also recall in another post I brought up the fact that several natural warming periods were evident in the geological record to which Ben responded that I was incapable of discerning apparently freakish decadal change. Apparently only his decades are worth noting but 16 years of non-warming aren’t even up for debate. Lastly, I will reiterate my previous acknowledgement that this being Ben’s gig, he will always get the last word in, as is appropriate, and so RJ, to argue further is futile.

Oh, hi Ben. I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better these days.

[Sorry for the delay in approving this comment. I wanted respond carefully, but after consideration it’s just a pile of facile bullshit, so why truly take it on. A “re-evaluation of modeling attributes is now necessary”? Welcome to every legitimate climate paper ever, Sherlock. Also, after decades of denialist bellowing about meaningless trends as short as two years, even the desperately-grasped “16 years of non-warming” statistical talking point doesn’t seem so useful when the fact is that this touted period actually warmed at a rate of 0.084°C per decade. And yeah, I’m going to call anyone on deception and game-playing as long as I’m in charge. – Ben]

Well Ben, I’m sure grateful my comment garnered “consideration” for your reply before it was reduced to “facile bullshit”. I apologize for the perceived superficiality in my post; I guess I failed to recognize the consistent high standard of science maintained in these numerous posts. I would have been hurt to have been further disparaged after no consideration. I am glad to read you do recognize the need for adjustment of theories and control values – for a minute there I thought you were just being obstinate.

I don’t consider my stance to be desperate – on the contrary I feel you refuse to explain the distinction between your decadal changes in temperature and the seemingly insignificant 16 years of non-warming. I would ask you to quantify the anthropogenic portion of that 0.084 degree Celsius per decade rise in temperature using what controls so as to not resemble my “facile bullshit”. But if you don’t wish to since I’m being “…deceptive and game-playing” I’ll just take my ball and go home. After all, it gets old playing ball when all the other guy does is call foul whenever he misses a shot. It appears you have plenty of other people waiting for “next”.